08/28/2026
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RIP— Yayoi Kusama, whose art evoked hallucinatory wonder, dies at 97
Her hypnotic, unconventional works propelled her from near-obscurity to a place in the world’s most prominent museums.
Yayoi Kusama, the beguiling Japanese artist who was a member of the 1960s avant-garde, disappeared from public view for decades and found global recognition late in life through her polka-dot paintings and mirrored, Instagram-friendly “infinity rooms,” died Aug. 14 /2026 at a hospital in Tokyo. She was 97.
Her death was announced Wednesday in a statement on her website, which did not cite a cause.
Ms. Kusama, a largely self-taught artist, rose from near-obscurity to near-ubiquity in the art world, even as she battled mental health issues and lived for decades at a psychiatric institution in Japan.
Tenacious, obsessive and, in the eyes of her critics, relentlessly self-promoting, she became a pop-culture fixture, making brightly colored, instantly recognizable paintings, sculptures and installations that were exhibited at major museums and made her one of the world’s top-selling contemporary artists.
Ms. Kusama said she was inspired by hallucinatory visions she had experienced since childhood, in which she could hear the voices of flowers, pumpkins and dogs. Art served as a form of therapy: She wrestled with many of the vivid images in her head by re-creating them in her art, and at times was said to paint without interruption for 40 to 50 hours straight.
“I don’t consider myself an artist,” she wrote in a 1975 autobiographical essay, “Odyssey of My Struggling Soul.” “I am pursuing art in order to correct the disability which began in my childhood.”